A Short Story – The Confectionary Aisle

Below is a short story I wrote last year for an assignment that focuses on a young girl as she makes a shocking realisation. It’s titled ‘The Confectionary Aisle’  and probably needs some work, but it’s a start. I’m planning on developing it into a novel, as soon as I can get control of my will power and stop feeling the need to eat a hundred mini scotch eggs and drink mug upon mug of tea every time I write something. I spend more time in the bathroom than clattering on the keyboard of my laptop. Once that’s sorted though, I’ll be a great author. Honestly. Now, enjoy.

I realised what she was doing to me far too late to stop her.

It seemed such a normal day when I first met her, but thinking back on it now, something couldn’t have been quite right, something was slightly off-balance, and that’s why I bumped into her.    

I was weaving my trolley round the aisles in Asda, attempting to feed myself within the constraints of my student budget when I stumbled across the confectionary shelves; the shiny wrappers of countless chocolate bars and bags of sweets winking cheekily at me, begging to be eaten. As usual, when presented with a situation such as this, my mind began a minor war with itself; one side telling me I really didn’t need the calories and the other side reminding me of the sensational taste of that first chocolaty bite. The taste-sensation side was just taking the lead when a voice behind me interrupted.

            “If you look at them for long enough, you won’t want one.”

            I couldn’t see her at first, the owner of this soft, female voice. I span around and came face to face with a girl who on first glance looked roughly my age. Although on closer inspection you’d be forgiven for thinking the lines on her face represented a fair few more years than my nineteen.

            “I’m sorry?” I replied after a few seconds of suspended silence.

            “When I’m tempted by something I shouldn’t eat I spend a long time looking at it, and I convince myself I don’t need it. Try it, it works.” The girl flicked her eyes from my face to the chocolate bars and as I opened my mouth to stammer a response she cut in authoratively. “Try it.” 

            My initial confusion seemed to evaporate and I was compelled to do as she said. It may have had something to do with the fact she looked shockingly similar to me, same height, same blue eyes and same ash blonde hair, the only immediate, noticeable difference was her frame; she was a much skinnier, wirier version of me. Or it may have simply been the controlling element in her tone of voice, whatever the reason, I turned instantly to the stacked shelves and looked properly at the content. I didn’t want a chocolate bar. The girl, my almost-parallel, registered the change in me, and held out her hand.

            “I’m Ana.”

To this day I still don’t remember how we got quite as close as we did in such a short space of time, but within days of our introduction, Ana played a huge part in my life. We did everything together as teenage girls often do when they’ve formed a close friendship. We spent countless hours poring over magazines, obsessing over the appearance of celebrities; Ana had a particular interest in their weight and I wasn’t disinterested with the size of the girls in the images in front of me. We made sure we stayed healthy by visiting the gym and jogging regularly – Ana was there when I felt like I couldn’t run any further to spur me along those last few steps. We never found time to sleep or eat, we were far too busy with our active lives to consider food, and when I stopped for long enough to let the hunger pangs kick in, Ana always whipped a new distraction from the sleeve of her over sized sweater.

Roughly a month after the day we met, I was sitting alone in my room, amongst the mess of discarded clothes and shoes with a chocolate bar in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I was momentarily content, savouring the taste of both and thinking how long it had been since I’d tasted chocolate, when a small, unfamiliar notepad caught my eye between the jumble of fabric. Simple curiosity led me to pick the notebook up and it was mere seconds before I wished I hadn’t. Flicking through the pad I found page after page of recordings; what I had eaten on a daily basis, how many calories I’d gorged on, and endless lists of my bodily measurements. At first I recognised the handwriting as my own, but it was scribbled, far too frantic and messy.

“Put that down!”

            I moved my head so fast my neck cricked and I came face to face with Ana. I hadn’t heard the door open, I was almost certain it hadn’t, yet there she was, tiny and white in front of me.

            “Put that down!” Her eyes were wide and she looked as terrified and angry as I felt. This was her writing. She reached to snatch the book away from me and brushed her arm against my cigarette, and as she did so, I was half aware of a burning sensation on my own arm. The book fell to the floor and there was a tense silence, I hadn’t a clue what to say to her. Ana, my most trusted friend…

            She rubbed her arm and glared furiously at me.

            “Get to the bathroom, now.” She grabbed at my wrist but before she had even reached me I was up on my feet, I didn’t need her physical touch to persuade me, I couldn’t fight her control anyway. “On your knees, head over the toilet.” I hesitated for less than a second before her hand was on the back of my head, pushing me towards the toilet bowl. She moved my own hand towards my mouth.

            “Don’t,” I said feebly but I knew it was no good. I had nothing on her.

            “Make yourself sick, I saw that chocolate bar in your hand. Have I taught you nothing?” 

She left me no time to respond as she shoved my hand into my mouth and further down my throat, and then I was violently, violently ill. After what seemed like a thousand years I lifted my head from the toilet bowl, weak from expelling the one morsel of food I’d had for days from my system. I turned shakily and slowly to her, barely noticing the cigarette burn on my own arm, hoping for the angry look on her bony face to be replaced with pride, but she was gone. And once again, I hadn’t heard the door open.

   She stayed with me for years, though not in the same way as that first month. We were no longer friends; she was simply a leader, a dictator. She would come and go like a ghost, she could walk through walls and break in doors without making a sound. I’d see her in the confectionary aisle, staring at the chocolate. I’d see her in the gym, sweating on a treadmill, glaring at me if I wasn’t doing the same. More than once she found me eating and the toilet scene was repeated. In my darkest moments I tried to hurt her, I’d go at her with blades but the cuts appeared on my wrists instead. I tried to put my cigarette out on her arm again during an argument, and the day after found I had two burn scars instead of one. She always, always won.

            Eventually, my friends and family became suspicious. They packed me off to a rehab centre where I was told on a daily basis that I had an eating disorder, and on a daily basis I told them I didn’t. Ana didn’t conform to the regulated visiting times, instead I’d find her sitting on my bed, waiting to tell me how clever I was for denying the claims. At first, I was glad to have her as a back up, someone that believed I didn’t have an eating disorder, but eventually I began to resent her presence. I’d shout at her until she evaporated from the room in her own special manner. I’d beat her until I couldn’t see her anymore. And I told everyone about her. My name’s Lily, and I have Anorexia.

            I beat it after four years of help, relapses and more help. I haven’t seen Ana now for six and a half years. I became too strong for her, I stopped turning down food and when I looked in the mirror I saw me, minus her skeletal figure hovering next to me. I saw only me, and I liked me. Against its best efforts, anorexia had lost.